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SAT essay—grammar

By posted January 20, 2012

While a few minor grammatical mistakes are not going to affect your SAT essay score too much, exceptional grammar could give your essay the extra push it needs to get a higher score, and too many grammar mistakes can make your message less cohesive and strong.  Here are some tips to perfect your essay writing skills in the grammar department:

1. Keep it simple.  It is better to be concise than wordy and redundant.  Also, don’t worry about using lots of “fancy” words—your grader will appreciate a clear argument more than big vocabulary words, especially if they are used incorrectly.

2. Avoid phrases such as “in conclusion,” “to summarize,” and “my example is…”  These things are implied by the fact that you stated them, so it’s not necessary to repeat them.

3. If you’re not sure if you need commas, read the sentence to yourself and add one anywhere you find yourself pausing.  Comma usage can affect the reader’s understanding of a sentence substantially.

Did you know that Grockit predicts your score based on your answers and tracks your performance and improvements, projecting accurate score improvements? Find out how and be prepared for test day!

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SAT Essay-The Personal Anecdote

By posted January 18, 2012

You may have heard that you should steer clear of personal anecdotes as supporting examples on the SAT essay, and instead focus on more academic examples, such as ones from history, literature, science, or current events.  While these are all great areas to pull examples from, personal anecdotes are just as valid as the examples you learned about in school.  It is probably a good idea to have at least one academic example, but there’s no rule that says that a great, well-developed essay can’t include only personal experience as examples.

Find out how you can get customized feedback on your essays, whether they are for the exam or admissions,  to hone your skills with a Grockit tutor

Some students feel so pressured to use only academic examples that they may pick one that does not fit their topic and thesis at all.  In this case, it is much better to use a personal story that fits your point of view well than to try to force an example that does not relate.  Another mistake to avoid is picking an academic example you are not fully familiar with instead of using a personal anecdote that you know all the details about.  Even if this academic example fits perfectly with the topic of the prompt, if you can’t explain it accurately, you will lose credibility.  Furthermore, it is pretty impossible to analyze an example you do not understand, so you will lose depth and coherence of ideas.

A great advantage of personal experience examples is that they can be tweaked or even made up to fit the point that you are trying to make.  Change the outcome of a situation you experienced so that it proves the point you are trying to make, or use a story you heard from a friend about his or her life.  No grader is ever going to know that the events might not have happened exactly as you described them.  However, they will take notice of a relevant example that is well explained and developed.

Find out how Grockit predicts your score based on your answers and tracks your performance and improvements, projecting accurate score improvements.

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SAT Essay-Developing examples

By posted January 17, 2012

A common mistake many students make on the SAT essay is listing examples.  The logic that the more examples you have to support your thesis, the stronger your argument must be, does not hold true.  In fact, the opposite is true.  The SAT essay graders are looking for two or three well-developed examples/supporting points that strengthen the author’s main point.  The development of each example within a body paragraph is the place for you to shine and show the graders your critical thinking and writing skills.  An essay that just states a viewpoint and then lists some examples is not proving how those examples connect back to the thesis, thus proving it.

Avoid making a laundry list of examples in your essay.  Such an essay lacks depth and will receive a lower score.  Some students may think they are using one supporting example, say technology, and developing it by listing different types of technology that support their point of view on the issue presented.  However, this is just another way of listing examples without explaining HOW they relate to the point of view of the author.

Try this SAT Passage Based Reading practice question and see if you’re ready to rock the SAT!

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SAT Essay: Transitions

By posted January 12, 2012

A great SAT essay flows smoothly and expresses ideas in a coherent, clear manner.  An important element of a coherent essay is the transition from paragraph to paragraph.  Transitions should be used in both closing and introductory sentences whenever possible.  The goal of a transition is to connect the ideas of the current and following paragraph (in the case of a closing sentence), or the ideas of the previous and current paragraph (in the case of an opening sentence).  Doing so will make the changing of topics within your essay less abrupt and choppy.

The first transition in your SAT essay will come at the end of the opening paragraph and is typically your thesis.  This transition is probably the easiest to make because your thesis states the point that you are making throughout the essay, and the next paragraph provides a supporting example that proves your thesis.  So as long as your thesis is clear, not much thought has to go into creating a transition here.  Some writers like to mention (not explain) what their examples will be within the thesis sentence to create an effective transition.

The next transition you will make is the opening sentence of your first body paragraph.  Instead of just jumping into stating what your example is, you want to create a smooth introductory sentence that incorporates both the overarching idea of your thesis and hints at or introduces the example to follow.  The introductory sentence of a body paragraph should be more broad than the detailed sentences explaining and analyzing the example that will make up the majority of the paragraph.

Need more SAT advice? Be sure to check out this blog Tips for Acing the SAT, from start to finish.

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SAT essay: The thesis statement

By posted January 10, 2012

The thesis statement is one of, if not the, most important sentences in your SAT essay.  Typically it comes at the end of the introductory paragraph, and its purpose is to present your viewpoint on the issue addressed in the prompt.  Here are a few tips to keep in mind to write a stellar thesis!

-Do not “waffle” on the issue.  When the reader is finished reading your thesis, he or she should have no doubts as to which side you are taking.  That being said, it’s ok to not be too extreme in your viewpoint.  For example:

“Although there are certain situations in which lying is necessary, people should generally live by the value of honesty.”

The author makes it clear what his or her point of view on the matter is, but allows that there are certain exceptions to the rule.

Find out how Grockit can provide personal study plans provide practice tests, improve on your weak subject areas, prompts review of your work and matched you with the right tutor.

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ACT Science: Understanding & Comparing Hypotheses on Test Day

By posted December 28, 2011

You’re likely to see ACT Science questions that ask about the hypotheses on the Research Summaries passages on Test Day, although hypotheses questions can also appear in Data Interpretation and Research Summaries passages. Make sure to always examine the point of view of the student/scientist/author. Ask yourself if the data supports their conclusions, or not. You may be asked to weaken or strengthen hypotheses individually, or you may be asked to compare more than one hypothesis.

To compare them, remember that you must understand the premise behind the experiments in order to know whether the results will weaken a conclusion. Try to identify the purpose, method, and results for each experiment first to get better scores on hypotheses questions. Unless you know the purpose, method, and results and can step into the scientists’ perspectives you will have a difficult time understanding the hypotheses. Here is a harder practice ACT Science Research Summaries passage, just like you might see on Test Day!

Stars often form in large groups.  For instance, an “open cluster” such as the Pleiades may contain hundreds of stars that were formed at approximately the same time (and are thus the same age). Even larger “globular clusters” may contain a million or more stars of approximately the same age.  By observing clusters of increasing age, astronomers are able to see how the brightness and temperatures of stars change as they age.


Shortly after a group of stars forms, a plot of their brightness versus their color (the left-hand panel of Figure 1) shows that they form a diagonal line called the “Main Sequence.” The bluest stars, on the left, are the brightest, and the reddest stars, on the right, are the dimmest.  (Star colors are divided into a series of “spectral classes” – O, B, A, F, G, K – as shown on the X axis of the figure.  A star’s brightness is expressed as an “absolute visual magnitude,” with the dimmest stars having the largest magnitudes.)

Test your science skills with this ACT science practice question.

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SAT Practice: Best Tips for Acing SAT Writing

By posted December 27, 2011

During your SAT review, make sure to familiarize yourself with each section and some of the types of questions that show up over and over again.  As you do your SAT prep and SAT practice tests, keep this helpful information in mind and you will be on the road to acing the SAT!

The good news about the multiple choice part of the SAT writing section is that the same twenty or thirty grammatical concepts are tested over and over.  The more you practice, the more familiar you will become with these patterns.  This top 10 list gives some of the most common grammatical patterns on the SAT as well as some general strategies to keep in mind.

1. Keep it simple! – The number one thing to keep in mind is that you want to pick the answer that is the most concise and simple, while still grammatically correct.  I throw in “while still grammatically correct” because following grammar rules means that the best answer choice is not always the shortest one.  If an answer choice seems wordy or overly elaborate, it’s probably wrong.

2. Don’t be redundant. – If something has already been stated or implied, there is no need to state it again.  For example, if a man’s name is included in a sentence, there’s no need for a phrase stating that he is a man.  The reader can infer this without the extra words.  Similarly, pronouns should not be thrown in that serve no purpose.

Test your SAT writing skills with this improving sentences practice question.

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Understanding “Variables” on the ACT

By posted December 26, 2011

Time management is crucial for great scores on the ACT Science Test. Since you only have about 5 minutes per passage, that’s less than one minute per question. Spend long enough on each passage to identify just the main information, and don’t get bogged down with the confusing details. Ignore any unknown terminology and spend most of your time on the presented data and the variables.

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A “variable” in math is a placeholder for an unknown. In ACT Science, this takes on a slightly different meaning and is used to describe the factors in an experiment.  Independent variables are factors that are controlled by the scientists. Did the scientists increase the heat in the experiment? Did they add or remove pressure? If the scientists have control over the variable, it is independent. Dependent variables are factors that the scientists observe changing. This is what the look for and how they record data — but they don’t control it.

You will also need to know direct variation and indirect variation. Direct variation occurs when two variables change in the same way over time. If Column A increases and Column B increases at the same time, we can say that the two columns vary directly.  If when Column A increases, Column B decreases, there is an indirect (also called inverse) variation between the two elements. In the real world, think of a pizza and the number of slices eaten. The weight of the pizza is inversely proportional to the number of slices eaten. That means that as more and more slices are eaten, the pizza weights less and less. In ACT Math, you may see direct and indirect variation in expression such as “y varies directly as x” or “y is directly proportional to x.” That means you can use the equation y = kx, where k is the constant of variation.

To understand the variables, look at the presented figures. Ask yourself: what does the figure tell me? What are the units of measurement? What changes, and when? In order to answer ACT Science questions correctly, you will need to pinpoint the relationships between the variables. Don’t try to memorize. Always go back to the data to find the correct answer. All of the information you need to get the questions correct are found the in passages, we just have to know where to look!

Much of the ACT Science data will be presented on graphs. Every graph has an x-axis and a y-axis. Pay close attention to the labels. The independent variable is most often found on the x-axis. When faced with multiple graphs, typically only one thing has changed. This is usually done by scientists to examine the results when a single variable is altered. If the scientists changed more than one variable, it usually doesn’t help them draw conclusions, since they wouldn’t know which change created the new results.

Remember to do the following for Data Interpretation and Research Summaries passages on Test Day:

  1. Find the Purpose, Method & Results for each experiment.
  2. Examine the data carefully, and look for the variable relationships.
  3. Go back to the passage for the correct answer.

Follow these steps on your next ACT Science passage on Grockit and you’ll soon be mastering even the most complex experiments!

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Measurements on the ACT

By posted December 22, 2011

Measurements questions on the ACT Science Test involve the numbers and corresponding labels that appear in the graphs and tables of the Science passages. Usually you will be asked to either identify the appropriate measurement, or to make an inference based on the existing numbers. To do this, pay close attention to certain statistical items: the median, range, and general distribution of the data.

Here’s another ACT science question for more practice!

The median, as you may recall from ACT Math, is the middle number when the data is ordered numerically from least to greatest. Get a sense of where the “middle” is. The range is the greatest value less the smallest value, or the span of the data. Which set has the widest range? Which has the smallest? The general distribution means how far apart each set of data is from each other. If we had a set of measurements that went 10, 20, 30, 42, 55, 65, we could say that the distribution or ratio was approximately +10  between terms. Let’s look an at example measurements question from Grockit’s database:

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ACT Math Practice: How to Graph Trigonometry Equations

By posted December 20, 2011

In order to graph trig functions, you need to understand some Trig basics. If you haven’t already, check out this quick refresher on SOHCAHTOA.

Sine, cosine, and tangent are the three main trig identities. They are usually graphed and expressed in degrees, but you may also see them expressed in radians. There are 2π radians in one circle. Each point on a circle corresponds to a certain number of radians. To convert degrees to radians, simply multiply by π/180.

Sine and cosine both have standard graphs that you need to memorize. The standard equation for sine looks like this:  y = sin x. The “period” of the wave is how long it takes the curve to reach its beginning point again. The coefficient in front of “sin” (here 1), is called the amplitude. It effects how high and how low the wave reaches vertically. If that coefficient changes, then the height changes. For example, y = 3 sin x, would show a curve that reaches +3 on the y-axis and extends down to -3 on the y-axis.

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